


The Thirteenth Child

by BurnItAllDownDahling



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Depression, Fade to Black, Implied/Referenced Incest, Incest, M/M, Parent/Child Incest, Sibling Incest, soooo much incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 08:31:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20485922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurnItAllDownDahling/pseuds/BurnItAllDownDahling
Summary: If Dante is the one who gave in to evil, and Vergil's the one who had to carry on, what becomes of Nero?





	The Thirteenth Child

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Family Reunion](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20399131) by [BurnItAllDownDahling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurnItAllDownDahling/pseuds/BurnItAllDownDahling). 

> This is a weird AU that got in my brain and wouldn't get out 'til I wrote it. You don't have to read "Family Reunion," which precedes this story by 18-ish years, but you should if you want to see what Evil!Dante was like. Note that this is specifically an AU of DMC4, not 5; Nero's 17 at the beginning. That's not underage everywhere, but it is in some places, which is why I tagged for that. No rape, just mention of it, but I know some people don't even like to see the word. The violence is canon-typical -- Nero loses an arm here, too. Everybody gets better tho.

When they pull Nero out of the Savior's dead heart, naked and shaking with weakness, the human woman seems troubled by what has been done to him. "The Order said you're mostly human," she ventures. He stares back at her blankly, feeling a dull, displaced sort of hatred. She sees it, and tries again, telling him that the Order had the right idea, aimed in the wrong direction. The world has gone to hell, literally. In the twenty years since the Temen-ni-gru rose, portals to the other world have opened everywhere, and monsters now regularly roam the streets and forests. It's a busy time to be a devil hunter. She can teach him to be a devil hunter, she says. Fight for all of humanity, rather than just the Order's chosen few.

Or -- because they dare not let him go free, look at what's happened already, for every demon infestation there is an ambitious human trying to harness demonic power, and Nero is powerful, valuable, and vulnerable -- they can take him to a place where he can arguably be said to "belong." But it is a terrible place, the woman warns. A place of staggering cruelty and depravity, where only power matters and only the strong are permitted to survive. They rape beautiful boys like him there, one of the other hunters says. They eat each other, and not always after the victim is dead. They are worse than demons, these "people," precisely because they are human too.

Yeah, that part Nero can believe. "Humans lie," he says. And when the woman raises her voice angrily, he interrupts her to clarify. "They don't always mean to. Sometimes they say they're doing a thing for your own good, and they believe it. Still a betrayal, though. They lie, and they die."

She stares at him. There's pity in her face, and Nero hates her for that. He hates everyone, really. Even himself.

"Do whatever you want with me," he says.

So her companions put a collar on him and toss him into a cage, and then they haul him off to the Temen-ni-gru.

#

Nero has shut down by the time the devil hunters set his cage down. The warding on the cage's bars saps his strength, keeping him as weak as he was when they found him. He hasn't tried to fight, in any case. He has nothing left to fight for.

When the cage-carriers move away, Nero sees that he's been brought into a space of opulent, gothic beauty: gray-black stone walls, rich dark red velvet hangings, elegant chandeliers, carved statues in between heavily-laden bookshelves twice the height of a tall man. At the center of the chamber is an absolutely enormous leather chaise with a gracefully-curved high back that makes it look like a throne. There's a man reclining on it who looks like a king, too. Long formal coat of dark blue brocade, long elegant hands, currently turning the pages of an enormous book. He doesn't bother to look up from the book as the woman, who is the leader of the group of devil hunters, steps forward.

The man on the chaise has white hair. Nero marks this without opinion. Guy looks old -- at least forty. Lots of old men have white hair.

"As you requested," the woman says. She shrugs a little. "And as he requested, for what it's worth."

An astonishingly ordinary-looking man stands to one side of the tableau. He's thirtysomething, average weight, average height, some kind of racial mix, brown hair. Nero would once have assumed him to be a demon, because only demons are so aggressively nondescript. The guy smells human, though. Nero never noticed before that humans smell human. Here in this place full of not-quite-humans, though, it's obvious. 

"I doubt the young sir had a choice," Average Guy drawls. He looks pointedly at the group of devil hunters, all of whom are armed to the teeth and defensively tense at the center of the room.

The woman, who has the world's biggest rocket launcher on her shoulder, with a bayonet because Nero guesses she's just extra like that, laughs without humor. "Actually," she says, "I tried to recruit him. We could use someone with that kind of power -- someone to fight on our side, against demons like you."

She's fearless. Nero notes how the other devil hunters' eyes have widened. One fingers his... chain-scythe-bolo thing, looking up warily. Up? 

But the man on the chaise merely turns a page in the book. "Wise of you to try," he says. His voice is a surprisingly high-pitched tenor, but rich with command and gravitas. For the first time since he saw Kyrie's dead body, Nero feels the first hint of some powerful emotion stir within him. Fear? No. He doesn't know what it is.

It's enough, however, to stir him to look up at whatever it is that's making the devil hunters so nervous. The chamber is enormous, so high-ceilinged and deep with shadows that Nero can't make out much up there -- but at intervals along the chamber's walls, there are balconies of a sort. Platforms, more like, since they don't have railings. Figures sit or slouch along these, like birds of prey at perch above a killing floor. It's dimly-lit up there; Nero can't make out much. Just that every one of these silent, looming predators has Nero's blue-gray eyes and white hair, gleaming in the dark.

The woman, meanwhile, has offered the man in blue a bitter smile. "You really don't care, do you? If humanity gets wiped out by demons."

"They won't be wiped out. I'm told devil hunting is quite the growth industry these days." The man inclines his head. "And thus humanity grows stronger -- as it must. As it should have, long before now."

"Your father was a champion to humanity."

After a long sigh, the man finally closes his book. "And look what that gained him. Allies too useless to come to his aid when he faltered. A wife too weak to protect his children after he died. He sacrificed everything to buy your kind two thousand years, and the best humanity could come up with in all that time was devil hunters." He shakes his head. "Well. I suppose that's better than nothing. In any case, I mean to leave humanity something more useful than a lone, fallible, champion."

"What?"

The man in blue does not answer, instead setting his book aside and rising from the leather chaise. That strange almost-feeling returns to Nero's heart. He doesn't know why. The man is intimidating not because he is tall and radiates power -- though both these things are true. There are other warnings of threat about him: his stance, which seems oddly stiff until Nero notices the sword at his hip and realizes he's ready to strike against any threat. His face, which is high-planed and strong-featured and beautiful in a way that virtually proclaims his inhumanity; human men don't look that good outside of magazine photoshoots. And his utterly merciless ice-silver eyes? Yeah. Even amid the depths of his apathy, Nero finds himself staring at this man, unable to look away. 

And what do you know? Nero's not wholly dead inside. That's fear he's feeling. Yep. Definitely fear.

The man steps off the elevated platform of the chaise and gazes down at Nero in the cage. In particular, he's staring at Nero's right arm. More non-apathy: Nero twitches a little, his old habit of hiding the arm kicking in. It's pointless. He's naked; the hunters tossed some clothes in with him, but he hasn't bothered to put them on. After that abortive twitch, Nero stops trying.

"The surviving members of the Order confirmed that he's yours," the woman says. "Apparently you passed through Fortuna at about the right time?"

The man in blue smiles. "Oh, he's mine, all right." He lifts his right arm and pushes up the sleeve of his coat, and the arm shimmers, becoming other. Hard dark blue armor instead of pale skin. Chased lines of glowing blue-white light like veins. Only the claws are different; Nero's are stubby as yet. Those of the man in blue are inches long, as wickedly curved as a hawk's, and glossy-black like volcanic glass. Nero twitches as his arm pulses as well -- not its usual _demons nearby_ flicker, but something deeper and more resonant.

_Kin nearby._

There are answers here, at last, to questions Nero's never even thought to ask before. Does he want to know the answers? He isn't sure.

"Pay them," says the man in blue, to Average Guy. Average Guy picks up a small leather briefcase and steps over to the hunters. Nero ignores them. He doesn't care what the going rate is for a scrawny, filthy, teenage demon's bastard. All he can look at, all he can think about, is the man in blue who stares down at him. 

_My father? This is my father?_

"So abject a creature," the man murmurs. Not really speaking to him, just out loud. "Born to greatness but forgotten. Shall we see what we can make of you? Come."

The last word is a command that yanks on Nero's limbs like strings. He's up, crawling toward the man on his hands and knees, before he knows what he means to do. What is this? He can't help it. When he's out of the cage, he doesn't have the strength to do more than sit on his knees, but he lifts his head like a dog waiting for a master's approving touch. Something else cuts through the apathy: outrage. What the fuck is he doing? What _is_ this?

The man in blue cups Nero's chin with an elegant hand that is once again human-shaped. He speaks a word in some language that Nero instinctively knows is demonic speech, and the collar around his neck snaps open and falls away. His limbs tingle as strength begins to return, but he still can't tear himself away from the hand that holds his chin. He begins to panic. 

"Shhh," the man says, very softly, and Nero catches his breath in sudden confusion. Is that... compassion, in the man's gaze? It seems impossible. This is not a man with a kind nature; Nero has known him all of five minutes and he's figured that much out. And yet it's there. 

"Humans raised you to hate yourself." The man shakes his head. "You look at your arm and see ugliness instead of magnificence and strength, because of them. That's the way of weak creatures: they try their best to break the strong through stealth and deception. They told you that you belonged among them, and then they forced you to _earn_ their care."

How does he know? Nero protests, mostly because he doesn't like that this man seems to have read his mind. "N-not all of them." Kyrie. She gave Nero her love freely -- and the high priests of the Order used that love to manipulate him.

"There are always a few. But the weak ones despise those, too, and use or destroy them whenever possible. Love, after all, is a form of power."

It's too much. Nero begins to tremble. "They killed her," he blurts. "I couldn't -- I _tried_. With all my strength, but I couldn't pull myself out of that fucking abomination. I just... And it sucked the life out of her." He begins to weep, helplessly, heedless of the humans nearby, who must be staring at him and laughing because that's what they fucking do. "She died because I was weak!"

The man in blue shakes his head slowly. "She died because you fought alone."

"I needed... more power. If I... could have just -- "

"You _needed_," the man says, firmly, "a family."

Nero stares back at him, caught. His father. And above, all around them -- his siblings. Family.

"Rise," the man commands, pulling with that cupped hand, and Nero's on his feet before he can muster the strength to pull away. He stares, blinking stupidly, as the man smiles. "So there _is_ a demon in you," he says. Nero's blood chills, but it's clear that the man is pleased. "It's sleeping as yet, but I can feel its power, even though you're mostly human. It's the nature of even powerful demons to acknowledge a stronger elder."

Which is why Nero can't stop himself from obeying this man's commands? It should bother him that something in him is so alien, so much in control. It doesn't, however. He isn't afraid anymore. The gray misery that has consumed him since Kyrie's death has begun to clear at last. He will mourn her, always. He will blame himself for her and Credo's deaths. But the man has said that he isn't alone in the world any longer, and it means everything to him.

"Please," he whispers. His father slides a hand through his stringy hair, around the back of his neck to cup it, and it feels like every touch he's ever craved and never been given. Something within him, perhaps the demon or perhaps just seventeen years' worth of loneliness, makes him say it. "Please help me."

The man -- his father, the king of the underworld and by proxy the human realm, whose name Nero will later learn is _Vergil_ \-- nods in cool, possessive satisfaction. "Of course."

It's the end of everything that's ever mattered to Nero. But also, a new beginning.

#

The human devil hunters leave. The human servants take Nero away and bathe him and feed him and bring him clothing that will fit. They bring him to a huge, beautifully-appointed bedroom with a big bay window that overlooks the city and mountains in the distance, all of it silver-lit by the full moon. He falls into an enormous four-poster bed that is stacked nearly as high with mattresses as Nero is tall, and then he sleeps for seventeen hours, which feel like years.

He awakens hungry, for food and for answers and for more of that strange, unbelievable sense of belonging that he felt in the library. When he lifts his head, there are two little girls, so unnervingly alike that they must be twins, perched on the dresser and a chair in the room. They brighten when he wakes. "Big Brother," they say in unison, and then giggle when he stares.

They are Beatrice and Bonaventura, they tell him -- his littlest sisters. He has three others. Seven brothers, not counting Nero; the girls seem quite put out by the gender imbalance. "But it suits Father's plan," says Beatrice, or possibly Bonaventura; Nero can't tell them apart. "They have more work to do, really, so I guess we shouldn't mind so much."

"Plan?" Nero asks. He remembers then that Vergil did not answer the human woman's question.

They giggle, together. "He'll tell you," says Bonaventura, or Beatrice, with a knowing look. "You're the eldest, now. He'll want you to get started soon."

"Charon's going to be so annoyed," the other girl says, and they giggle again. "He was eldest until you came. But you're much stronger than him. We all feel it. You're very close to awakening."

He's starting to hate feeling ignorant. "Awakening?" 

"Becoming like Father," says one of the girls. She reaches out and pats Nero's Devil Bringer, as if it's just an arm. He flinches before he can quite stop himself; no one's ever touched it, before. "Like Uncle Dante. When your demon wakes up, you reach your full power."

Uncle Dante. "Vergil has a brother. Got it."

They go quiet for a moment. Then one says, "He's dead. A long time ago. Father killed him."

Nero inhales. "Shit, really?" His own brother.

"He had to! But Uncle Dante is still with us," says the other girl. "That's what Father says. So we try to remember him, and the lessons that he taught us."

Lessons like how to betray your brother? It shouldn't sound ominous, but Nero reminds himself that the girls who sit before him are part demon...

...shit. Like his father. Like himself. _The humans raised you to hate yourself_. And to be suspicious of everything that comes from a demon's mouth. But they _aren't_ demons, are they? Not completely.

"Not completely," says one of the girls, when he says this out loud. But she grins. "We're a lot more demon than you, though."

Nero realizes later that he must have stared, because the girls giggle again at his incredulity. "Father is the demon king," one of them says, amused. "Females of every demon species fight for the right to bear him a child; it's an honor. And as you've seen, he's made many of us."

"But only one with a human," says the other girl. She gazes steadily at Nero, and belatedly he realizes she hasn't blinked for a long time. Then she seems to remember, and does so -- with a little apologetic smile at him for noticing. "We thought you would be weaker because of it, but Father says human blood grants unexpected strengths. There would be more of you, but Father also says that human women do not quicken easily for demon seed. Grandfather -- Sparda, the legendary dark knight -- tried for two thousand years before he made Father and Uncle Dante. And Father doesn't like human women much, so he hasn't been with many. He must feel grateful to have made you so quickly, even if it was by accident."

Oh. "He, uh, must like demon women, then." It bothers him. He doesn't know why.

The girls look sad again. "Oh, no," says one. "He does his duty for the plan, but he's had no true lover since Dante died."

"He's been so lonely," says the other girl. They look at each other, radiating sorrow. And then they look at Nero, who is trying very hard to school his face to expressionlessness. But the devil hunters warned him, didn't they? A place of depravity. Where families love each other like humans, and sometimes fuck and kill each other like demons.

_Too late now_, Nero thinks, setting his jaw. He asked for this. He needs this. The humans don't want him and he can't abide demons. So Nero will do whatever he must, _become_ whatever he must, to keep his new multi-species family.

The girls call a servant to bring them a meal, and while Nero eats and they nibble for politeness' sake, they tell him the new order of his life.

Vergil is demon king by right of combat, after he and his brother fought and defeated the Darkness Mundus. On his word -- despite what the human devil hunters think -- the great bulk of the demon hordes have been held back, lest they destroy humanity entirely. But the demons are a restive lot, unhappy at being ruled by a mortal half human, and it has become urgent that Vergil name an heir of sufficient strength to take over the throne. The demons are aware that it took both brothers to defeat Mundus. Alone, Vergil is vulnerable -- and the assassination attempts are constant.

The plan, then, becomes clear. Vergil has created not one potential heir, but many. A whole family of them, each ready to take over should another fall, all working together. Vergil permits no lasting rivalries among his children, and even petty squabbles must be resolved quickly. "'I wasted half my life hating half of myself, and taking out that hatred on the person I loved most,'" he has told his children, whenever they fight amongst themselves. "'We have only each other in this world. So get over yourself, say you're sorry, and move on.'"

And Nero's role, now that he has come, is to grow strong enough to help.

It's a role he throws himself into wholeheartedly. Why wouldn't he? This is his family. Over the next few weeks, Nero meets his siblings, individually and in groups, letting them get to know him. When he sees that Charon, the next-oldest boy at sixteen, is wary of him, a sparring match between them resolves the worst discomfort. Then Nero visits the nursery, and risks the servants' wrath to change the diapers of Cato, his one-year-old brother -- who grins and babbles at him in what he decides is a greeting, so he grins and says hi back. He gets to know the servants for that matter; they're just people doing a job, no reason to be an ass to them. Average Guy turns out to be Bradford, a professional executive assistant who finds organizing literal hell to be a refreshing challenge. Vergil's even got a... pet. It's a demon, of course, though usually it takes the form of a large panther, and is preternaturally intelligent. Nero's fairly certain it's a shapechanger. But it has been charged with the protection of Vergil's smallest children, so he greets it formally, and it inclines its head to him with palpable respect.

This is the family he's always craved, however strange and terrible and beautiful it is. And they are that. Some of them can only eat meat, and little Farinata can only drink human blood, for which purpose Vergil employs a small sub-staff of servants who each donate pints every other week. Some of them can summon ghostly precursors of the demon forms they will eventually assume, which range from roughly humanoid to giant demon horses. Nero begins to notice how the others surreptitiously touch him, sniff him, brush against his things when they think he isn't looking. He finds their scents compelling too, and feels the occasional urge to brush his hands over their hair or hug them, pressing his face to their cheeks. When he finally starts to understand, he invites them all to do what they need, and the looks of relief on their faces are illuminating. It is a demon thing, that they need to mark him with their scents, to make him smell like family. It is a demon thing that they hunch when he approaches, sensing and reacting to his power, even if they're glad to see him. And it is a demon thing that he _expects_ their deference on some level -- because he's part demon too. Not as much as them, but it's a thing that has to be acknowledged. He's spent too much of his life denying it.

His Devil Bringer stops glowing a warning in their presence. Slowly but surely, they become family, and part of his strength.

And as the months pass, it begins to trouble Nero that he cannot be this for Vergil -- not completely. Not yet. They spar together occasionally, he and his father, which is thrilling and magnificent because Nero can go all out, but it's clear that Vergil must hold back. He learns everything that Vergil can teach him: demon world etiquette and lore, strategy and battlefield tactics, the arts of the sword, poetry just because. But although he basks in Vergil's praise and pride, he begins to see through his father's cool, calm facade to the sorrow underneath. It's been there all along, hasn't it? A brother-shaped hole in the family. Vergil is a king who was never meant to rule alone.

And Nero... wants to be what he needs. He doesn't know if that makes him as depraved as a demon or what, but as he watches Vergil ascend from the bathing pool one evening, holding out his arms so that the servants can attend and dress him, he finds himself staring, feeling the first stirrings of something that must be lust. He's not sure because he's never felt anything so intense; his desire for Kyrie was a thin thing by comparison. It bothers him that he feels this, and he looks away, ashamed -- and angry that he is ashamed, because that's a human thing -- and frustrated with himself for not knowing what to do -- and hot and flushed and wanting to creep away so he can find someplace quiet to jerk off.

A shadow falls over him as he sits there angsting. Vergil's wearing an elegant dark blue robe, and there is knowing in his gaze as he cups Nero's chin again -- his favorite affectionate gesture, and Nero's favorite as well -- and bends to inhale near his throat. Nero knows what this is, now, and his whole body tightens in response. He wants. He doesn't know what he wants, but it's there, and powerful, and suddenly he does not find it at all disturbing. All it took to settle him was Vergil's touch. 

"You're near your time," Vergil says, and Nero shuts his eyes in joy, in need. But then Vergil sighs and straightens, which is unbearable. Greatly daring, Nero reaches out to catch a fold of his robe. "Please," he says. He doesn't need to be a demon for some things, for shit's sake.

And Vergil... wants, too. He hasn't shown it before now, but it's there in the hint of blue illuminating his irises, and the sudden whiff of demonic musk and aggression in his scent, and the prick of claws along Nero's jaw. It's gratifying; until now Nero hasn't been sure that the lust went two ways. But then, infuriatingly, Vergil lets Nero go.

"You aren't ready for me, yet," he says. It's not a criticism, just a statement of fact, and Nero groans, hating the truth of it. But there are plenty of hints, aren't there? Those claws. The growl that he can feel rather than hear. Nero has seen the magnificence of his father's true form, the tail and horns and four black wings like night made solid. He knows that when his father finally beds him, something other than a man will claim his virginity. A lesser man would have taken Nero already and risked the damage to his body and sanity, but Vergil has infinite patience.

Vergil smiles, as if hearing this thought. "Don't mistake me," he murmurs. "You grow stronger by the day, closer with each passing moment to becoming my equal -- and _that_ is what I want. I wait because anticipation will make the moment that much sweeter, when it finally comes." He inhales again, his eyes half lidding as he savors Nero's ripening scent. "And then I mean to take _everything_ from you, sweet Nero."

Please. Yes. Vergil has given him back his life, and Nero just wants to give that life back to him. He shuts his eyes, aching. Vergil is kind; he touches his lips to Nero's, just for a moment. Just a taste of things to come. Nero opens his mouth and dares to deepen the kiss, and there is sweetness and a prickle of sharpness and quick hot pain and blood. He jerks back reflexively; his tongue's been cut. It heals in an instant, but his pulse is racing. His hand shakes as he rubs the back of it across his mouth. Just his own blood. But he wants...

Vergil has closed his eyes, licking the blood on his lips. When he opens them again, his gaze is fixed on Nero's chest. On his heart, pumping and full of Nero's blood there behind the cage of his ribs.

Abruptly Vergil pulls away again, turning away bodily this time. "Later," he says, and starts to walk away.

"You can," Nero blurts. Vergil stops. He wants Vergil to know that he understands, finally. The demon part of them is powerful, and has needs. The human part of him can accommodate that. "You can eat my heart, if you want. I won't mind."

He sees Vergil's shoulders rise slowly, then fall. Getting control of himself. "Foolish boy," he says at last. Nero can hear him smile. "I want a lot more of you than just your _heart_."

Then he's gone.

The next day, Nero begins throwing himself into sparring matches against his siblings, forcing them to grow stronger to survive him, pushing himself harder because he can feel the demon in him stir when he does. Outside of sparring, his siblings comfort him, in his frustration. "We all feel it," says Bonaventura. He can tell the twins apart now. She pets his shoulders while he sits at the table, clutching his head and shaking with the feeling of _imminence_ that sits just under his skin. "But you shouldn't push it. Father thinks that's what went wrong with his brother. He and Dante both awakened their demons early; they were children, being attacked by demon assassins, so they had to. But Father was ready for his demon, and Dante... wasn't. He became incredibly powerful, Uncle Dante, but he was a monster, too. Even by our standards. That's what destroyed him."

The words are helping. Nero takes deep breaths and begins to feel more in control of himself. "Tell me," he manages.

They're attuned enough to understand. Ciacca, the eldest of the girls, takes up the thread of the tale. "They were allied. But Dante attacked Vergil in the middle of the battle against Mundus. He couldn't help himself. He had given himself over to his demon for power, and the demon was mad. When it turned on them, Vergil had to strike Dante down. Then, somehow, he found the strength to defeat Mundus too."

While mourning his brother. Nero inhales, suddenly disturbed. He clutches at his chest, balling up his shirt in one hand. "Will that happen to me?" he wonders aloud. "When this thing inside me wakes up, will I go mad, too?"

They look at each other, and belatedly Nero realizes it's something they're all afraid of.

Charon -- who's also close to his time; sometimes Nero can feel the other boy's demon roiling within him like an earthquake -- takes a deep breath. "Father says demons don't love, not usually," he says. "They can, but it's hard for them. But humans love _too_ easily, which makes them fickle. For us, it's in between." He shrugs. "We have to have someone to focus on. Someone to love. Without that, we're empty -- and if we're empty for too long, the demon fills the space. I think that's why Father tries so hard to make sure we'll always have each other."

Nero thinks of the wretched, heartbroken thing he was when the hunters brought him to Temen-ni-gru, and realizes Vergil is right. If the demon had come to him then, it would have terrified and overwhelmed him. Now, though...

Shit. "That means Dante never loved Vergil." If his demon had driven him to attack when Vergil needed him most, then Vergil was never his focus.

Another pained silence. Nero scowls. A Dante-shaped hole in the family, that does not deserve to be there. He gets up, too restless and angry to bear their comfort anymore, and heads back to his room. They don't follow.

He wakes just after midnight, alerted by instinct an instant before something amorphous lurches out of the dark toward his bed. He leaps away from it in time to avoid a body blow, and the blob of whatever it is destroys the bed, crushing and dissolving it all at once. Nero curses and raises his hand to wave away mist -- or he tries to. His right arm won't move. And belatedly, in horror, he notices the goey black threads that have wrapped themselves around his Devil Bringer...

...an instant before searing heat engulfs the arm, and the Devil Bringer is ripped away.

It's the worst pain he's ever felt. He screams, holding the arm in a clumsy effort to squeeze off the blood loss as he staggers away from the thing, which rears up from the other side of the bed and lurches toward him again. His sword -- the Red Queen again, purchased from hunters after they found it in the rubble of Fortuna -- was on the side of the room currently being dissolved by the blobby thing. He can't fight this thing barehanded, or one-handed, and he's certainly not going to be able to fight anything if he keeps losing blood at this rate.

No choice. He runs into the corridor. And, too late, he senses other foreign presences in the Temen-ni-gru, and hears screams from his siblings' quarters. God, it's another assassination attempt -- not at Vergil himself this time, but at Vergil's children.

There is a thundercrack and a streak of blue-black across his vision, and then Vergil stops to hover before him, in full demon form. Those hot blue eyes narrow at Nero's arm. "Go," Nero gasps. "I'm okay. The others -- "

Vergil nods then streaks away, toward Ciacca's room where she's screaming. Nero staggers over to the wall, gasping for breath, beginning to shiver with shock. He told Vergil he was okay, but it was a lie. He's in trouble. The arm is healing too slowly; he's going to faint from blood loss before it forms a stump, at this rate. Then he hears the warning snarl of the panther demon from down the hall. Cato's room. The goddamned demons are going after a _baby_.

Nero stumbles in that direction, but falls before he's gotten three steps. With a snarl of fury, he pounds the floor with his good hand, trying to push himself up and failing. If only he could trigger. If only he had more power. If he just had a fucking _sword_.

_Oh, is that all you want? Well, then. You should've said so._

Startled, Nero looks up, frowning. Who...? A male voice, lazy and drawling -- but there's no one in the corridor. The blob-thing hasn't come out of his room after him; maybe it's got a limited range. But.

There's a door hovering in the air in front of him, which wasn't there a moment ago.

With agonizing effort, Nero manages his feet. The doorway doesn't look like some kind of new demon assassination attempt. And the Temen-ni-gru _is_ a castle of strange arcanity. Sometimes, if one needs things enough, it provides. And what comes through the door, when Nero pushes it open a crack, is a scent that is strange, yet familiar. Someone he's never smelled before. Family, though.

On impulse, Nero pushes the door open with his good hand, and stumbles through.

He's in something like a vault. Before him stands a statue bigger than Vergil in his other form, which is painfully familiar to Nero from a childhood spent in the Order: Sparda. This version of Sparda does not stand heroically upright, however. His horn-crowned head is bowed, his whole stance bent with grief, and in the statue's upraised hands is a stone platter. On the platter, broken into three big pieces and some fragments, is a sword. It's the strangest, biggest sword Nero's ever seen -- longer than he is tall, distinctly organic, with a crosspiece of four joined talons and a ridge of black stuff running along its midlength that could be cooled lava... or demonic armor. Whatever the hell it is, the double-edged blade seems to be _growing_ from it.

A sword. Broken, though. Nero curses again. "What _good_ are you, like this?" he asks the sword. "How the hell am I supposed to protect anybody with such a piece of shit?"

_Wow, tell me how you really feel, kid,_ the sword replies.

Nero jerks violently, looking around -- but no. It's the sword. Suddenly he understands what he's looking at. That last desperate strength that Vergil found to defeat Mundus, after exhausting himself against his brother. The hole in Nero's family... which is apparently shaped like a big, smartmouthed sword. 

"Dante," he says, in shock.

The sword, broken pieces and all, pulses acknowledgement. Its power, even in this resting, broken state, is staggering -- but that fits, doesn't it? Power enough to defeat a demon king. Too much power, even if Nero had an arm that could use it; he thinks just touching this thing might burn him up like kindling. And anyway...

"You didn't love him," Nero snarls. He's swaying on his feet. His stump is only dripping sluggishly now, but he's lost too much blood; it's making him delirious. Or maybe that's just the jealousy. "He _needed_ you, you stupid shit, but you had to go and let your fucking demon _eat_ you. He needs you now, we all do, and here you are, _useless_."

_You know nothing_, the sword replies. No amusement this time, only weary seriousness. And underneath the weariness, sorrow. _Mundus' minions took my family when I was a child. I let the demon loose because it was either that or nothing -- and yes, the demon devoured me, because I didn't bother to stop it. When I betrayed him during the fight against Mundus, Vergil tore the heart from my chest, and it set me free for the first time since That Day. I loved him again as I died in his arms. I fought by his side wholeheartedly, and sacrificed the last of myself to make sure that he, at least, survived. Can you do as much for him, nephew?_

Nero can feel the sword's regret, then. And so _much_ love; he clutches his chest and aches with it. Does Vergil know? Nero has to tell him. Still. "I'll do that and more," he snaps. "I'll _live_ for him, and be whatever he fucking needs! But right now..." He's barely on his feet. "I don't know what to do. I need more power." No. "I n-need them. My family." Who are possibly dying, even now. Vergil is incredibly powerful, but Vergil has thirteen children and even he cannot be everywhere at once. His enemies have chosen their targets well this time. Every member of his family that Vergil loses will become a lance driving poison into his soul. He'll survive it, but if he despairs... Nero shakes his head and turns to go. He'll fight with his fucking teeth if he has to.

_Dumbass_, the sword says. Wow, his uncle's cranky. _Get back here._

Nero reacts without thinking, obeying the command of a more powerful demon. When he finds himself back at the statue, he curses. "I can't, you broken idiot." He can wield left-handed, but he's still going to need a whole sword if he's going to do anything with it.

_Yeah, well. Guess it's time we both woke up. Hang on._

The sword rises into the air. Nero catches his breath as it tilts into a vertical position, beginning to spin, its fragments drawing together -- and as the sword heals before his eyes, Nero feels something rise within him, shivering through his skin, synchronizing with the sword in some indefinable way, _awakening_ \--

"Power," Nero whispers, as his eyes alight and his skin turns to armor and clawed wings form upon his back. "Give me more power."

The Dante snaps together with a blaze of fiery light and a metallic ring as deep as the tolling of a bell. Its hilt beckons. Nero snarls and reaches for it with his absent right hand. He is neither disturbed nor shocked when blue light swirls in the negative space, and suddenly he has a right arm again. He grasps the Dante's warm, living hilt, and the unbelievable power of the sword washes through him like a cleansing flood.

_I'll do you one better, kid,_ the sword that is his uncle drawls. _I'll give you family. Let's rock._

#

Much, much later, after the demonic assassination weapons have been destroyed and the culprits tracked down and whole regions of hell obliterated in retaliation, and after Nero's siblings (all alive, though Farinata has lost an arm and Sordello was badly burned and Charon, too, awakened his demon in the midst of it all) have been comforted and healed... Nero goes to his father's quarters and presents him with the Dante.

"He did love you," Nero says, as Vergil stares down at the sword he tore from his brother's corpse. "He had to die to remember himself, but he became this because he said he wanted to fight at your side. If you want it, I -- "

He stops because Vergil has put a hand over Nero's mouth. He's still staring at the sword. "Foolishness, Dante," he murmurs. "I always knew."

But then Vergil takes the sword... and hands it back to Nero, hilt-first. "I already have a sword."

With some relief, Nero takes the Dante back. It's the most magnificent sword he's ever wielded, and he didn't really want to give it up. He vanishes the sword into etherspace. Then it's just them, Nero and Vergil, and the bed is there, and the night is long.

Nero has something to say, first. "I've figured out what you're trying to do."

"Oh?"

He shrugs. "You're not just making a family. You're pulling a Genghis Khan. What's he got, millions of descendants by now?"

"I'll settle for a few hundred thousand," Vergil says, but there is smug satisfaction in his gaze.

"Oh, only that?" Nero rubs his nose, blushing. He's not sure he wants to get busy with a bunch of human and demon women. He has always wanted a big family, though. Maybe they can do artificial insemination or something? Fuck, he'll figure it out later.

"Yes." Vergil steps closer. He cups a hand under Nero's chin and Nero shudders all over and turns his head aside, baring his neck to his father as the demon within him demands. He feels Vergil's deep growl reverberate through them both. But though Vergil bends to press his lips against the curve of Nero's neck, he doesn't press the matter, yet. "Enough to make a whole race of us, eventually. Sparda couldn't do it alone. Dante and I managed, but we were alone, too, and that damaged us. Even one family, however large, isn't enough... but that will change as our numbers grow." He bares his teeth against Nero's skin, and Nero shudders all over. "We'll protect the two worlds from each other, since they can't seem to manage it on their own. And with enough of us around, we'll keep the occasional hybrid megalomaniacs in check, too."

"Yeah, okay," Nero breathes. He's shaking again, this time with the effort of standing passive while he awaits his father's pleasure.

He feels Vergil smile. "Are you even listening to me?"

_He always talks too much_, says Dante.

_Yes_, says Nero's demon, irritably. _Talk later._

It's nice not to be alone anymore. Time to make sure that goes both ways.

"Nope," Nero says. Then he slides his arms around his father's neck. "Please?"

"Of course," says Vergil, and that's the end of everything for a while. 

But a new beginning, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate titles I came up with for this story: "V Gets A Little Bit Genghis Khan," "The Big Middle-Aged Man Who Lived in a <strike>Shoe</strike> Demonic Palace," and "A Quiverfull of Demons." Apologies to Patricia Wreade, whose book I really didn't like, but her title was better than the crap I was coming up with.
> 
> So, I struggled to write this, because I kept trying to make Vergil the one from the Family Affair series, and... no. To my mind, Vergil had his come to Jesus moment when he killed Dante, rather than 20 years later when Nero beats sense into him, so that changes his entire history. He realizes he's been a violent dick and is in serious danger of following Dante into self-destruction, so he becomes the kinder, gentler Vergil you see here. I don't know whether to call that OOC or not, given that it feels to me like a rational extrapolation of a What If.
> 
> I also had to work against my own squinchiness about Nero's age here. I know he's legally of age; that doesn't mean he's emotionally a match for somebody like Vergil -- especially given the low state he's in at the beginning of the story. I tried to make it work, but I really wasn't feeling a sex scene, so sorry about the FTB.
> 
> There are a lot of implicit canon changes and speculations that I had to work in here; hope they make sense. Basically I keep trying to figure out why the hell Nero is *Vergil's* kid and not Dante's. That is, given what we know of young Dante and young Vergil, it's a lot more likely that Dante threw his dick around irresponsibly than Vergil. So I decided that it's actually really hard for demon-human hybrids to be conceived and brought to term, especially with human women. Still doesn't explain Vergil failing to wrap his dick up, but at least it explains why the world isn't drowning in Dante's neglected bastards. I also decided that without Dante showing up to help, Nero would've been unable to escape from the Savior on his own, meaning that Lady (per the Special Edition) defeated it and rescued him -- but only after Kyrie was dead. Also, I speculated that the Temen-ni-gru might actually make a nice place to live, once all the damn demons are scrubbed from its corridors, and Vergil grows some taste.
> 
> Yes, Vergil's kids are all named after characters in "Dante's Inferno". Yes, Nero's a virgin. Why? Because.
> 
> YeahthereisadistantpossibilitythatNerohasnowbeenpossessedbyDante'sdemon but we're not gonna think about that much.
> 
> I am not going to continue this. Vergil's plan is batshit. He's literally going to fix the world with his dick. I can only take that seriously for one story, sorry.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Selfishness](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25247134) by [BurnItAllDownDahling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurnItAllDownDahling/pseuds/BurnItAllDownDahling)


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